Poppy (15 page)

Breakfast over, Sister Kay, Nurse Gallagher and Moffat had started the morning dressings round, and Poppy was about to begin tidying the men’s lockers when she heard Sister saying something about giving the new VAD some bandaging practice. A moment later Moffat came over and said they were to swap jobs.

Poppy looked at her in alarm.

‘You’ll be fine,’ Moffat said. ‘Dressings are changed every day, sometimes twice a day, so it’s just as well that you learn the basics.’ She must have seen the look of apprehension on Poppy’s face because she added, ‘Just remember: look the patient in the eye and keep a smile on your face.’

Poppy went to join Sister and Nurse behind the dressings trolley, praying that she would not faint or be sick, but act sensibly, maturely and positively. If faced with a gruesome facial injury, she would act out the plan that she and Matthews had devised.

I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine
, she said to herself, and was awfully glad that no one there knew about the episode on the troop train.

There was a gramophone in the ward, a present from the grateful father of a boy who’d been patched up and sent home, and Smithers wound it up and put on a record of popular music-hall songs.

‘They like the songs?’ Poppy asked Moffat, as several of the boys started humming, whistling or singing.

‘Well, yes. It concentrates their minds while their bandages are being changed, gives them something else to think about.’

Poppy nodded.

‘And sometimes stops the poor things screaming,’ Moffat added wryly.

For some of the patients, having their dressings changed was painful. For others it was
very
painful. If the wound had bled overnight and the cotton wool and gauze had stuck to the raw place, it was especially bad. Brave though they were, the cleaning and r
e-
bandaging of their wounds caused many young men to weep. Unfortunately for the nervous Poppy, one of the first to be attended to, Private Johnson, had one of the worst wounds of all: not only had his left arm been blown off, but he had a huge hole in his side.

‘Walked right into it, caught the explosion just as I turned,’ he said to Poppy, as the bloo
d-
caked dressings were peeled off him.

Poppy stood by to put the sodden bandages in a bowl, trying to be an automaton, trying not to wince, grimace or run out screaming. If he can stand it, she thought to herself, so can I.
If he can stand it, so can I
 . . .

Carefully, Sister Kay and Nurse Gallagher turned Private Johnson on to his good side. He’d been humming
My Love and I
when they’d reached him, but now his face was white and taut with pain.

‘Where did you say your home town was, Private Johnson?’ Nurse Gallagher asked, sponging the old bandage to soften it and then encourage it to come off.

Private Johnson gritted his teeth and managed to say, ‘Richmond.’

‘Ah yes. I believe there’s a lovely park there.’

Private Johnson gave a groan.

‘I believe you said you’d been there, Pearson,’ Nurse Gallagher said to Poppy.

‘Oh, yes, I have!’ Poppy said, realising that she was being asked to pick up the conversational ball. ‘Lovely . . . deer and things. And other wildlife.’ She thought of all the parks she’d ever visited and what they’d had in them. ‘Grass snakes, as well, if you’re not careful . . . and wild flowers in spring.’

Private Johnson let out a shuddering breath, then said, ‘My wife and I . . . picnics there last summer . . . before the war started.’ As Nurse Gallagher released the last piece of dressing, he bit his lip so hard that it drew blood. ‘We’ve got a picnic basket. Wedding present . . . and . . . and . . .’ but the pain was too much for him and he fainted.

‘Poor chap,’ Sister Kay said. ‘Let’s work quickly now.’

Poppy held the enamel dish steady, looking at Private Johnson’s face so that she wouldn’t have to look at the ghastly open wound, while Sister and Nurse cleaned and dried it, packed it out with sphagnum moss and r
e-
bandaged it.

‘Sit beside him and hold his hand until he comes round,’ Sister said. ‘Get him a warm drink if he wants one.’

Poppy drew up a stool beside the bed and took Private Johnson’s hand, feeling his pulse to make sure it didn’t falter. Sister and Nurse moved on, but it was several moments before Private Johnson came round.

‘They’ve finished,’ Poppy said as soon as he opened his eyes. ‘It’s all over.’

‘All over for today,’ Private Johnson said, pale and faint. ‘God knows how many more days I’ll have to go through it.’

Poppy squeezed his hand. ‘Would you like a warm drink? Some cocoa?’

But he didn’t seem to hear her. ‘Course, my best mate wasn’t as lucky as me,’ he said hoarsely. ‘On watch, he was, when a sniper got him right in the throat. Severed his windpipe and that was it. Gone in a flash.’

Poppy gave him a sympathetic look. ‘Well,
you’re
still with us,’ she said. ‘And with a bit of luck, maybe next summer the war will be over and you’ll be picnicking in the park again.’

It was an awfully trite remark, she thought afterwards, but really, what was she supposed to say? And what were the chances of such a hideous wound ever healing? Sister Malcolm had told them that, with the worst wounds, gangrene – often leading to death – was a constant danger, no matter how carefully the men were nursed. Private Johnson’s only hope was a skin graft; but it seemed a huge amount of space to cover . . .

Once Private Johnson was sitting up, propped by pillows and grey of face, Poppy rejoined Nurse and Sister. By now they had reached Thomas Stilgoe, who was the only person in the ward called by his first name. He was seventeen, or so he said, but so small and thin he looked no more than twelve. He’d been acting as a messenger taking notes along the trenches from one unit to another, when he’d trodden on a landmine which had blown off most of his leg below the knee. The rest of it had been amputated on the field there and then, with what small amount of painkillers had been available.

‘Pearson, this is our special boy,’ said Nurse Gallagher, and she set swinging the small stuffed bear that someone had attached to the end rail of his bed.

‘Do leave off, Nurse,’ Thomas said.

‘The men have made a bit of a pet of him,’ Nurse Gallagher said to Poppy. She lowered her voice. ‘Although he’s been very quiet lately. We’re taking care that he doesn’t go into a depression.’

‘Thomas will want his food mashed up!’ someone called.

‘And his milk in a feeding bottle . . .’

‘That’s enough!’ Sister Kay said to the ward. She began to unwrap the blood-soaked bandage. ‘Are you feeling all right, Thomas?’

The boy, now looking very pale, nodded, but bit hard on an edge of the blanket as the stump of the amputated leg was exposed to the air. It looked dreadful, Poppy thought as she concentrated on smiling, like something hanging in a butcher’s shop.

‘The wound will need to be surgically tidied up soon,’ Nurse said to Poppy, ‘because it was done in a hurry in a dugout. And the surgeons will want to get out one or two last pieces of shrapnel.’

She and Sister Kay sponged, dabbed and trickled clean water over the livid flesh before tying it up in a neat parcel.

‘Bear up, lad,’ Sister Kay kept saying to him. ‘Nearly over. Bear up . . .’

‘Have your people been to see you yet?’ Poppy asked when the job had been completed and Thomas was lying limp and exhausted from the effort of ‘bearing up’.

‘There’s only me ma and she’s away in Newcastle,’ Thomas said. ‘She can’t get down because of the bairns.’

‘It
is
a long way for her to come,’ said Sister Kay sympathetically, ‘but we’ll see what we can do.’

They moved on to the next patients, with Poppy going backwards and forwards carrying away used dressings, fouled water and bloodied pyjamas, and passing Sister clean bandages, boiled water and – if she could find them – clean tops and trousers. As she worked she tried to familiarise herself with the different injuries which the men had endured, learning a little about each man. Private Franklin had had both arms blown off when he attempted to chuck out a grenade which had been thrown into his trench; Private Freeman had lost his left arm and most of his shoulder in a mortar attack; Sergeant Carter lost a footful of toes through stepping on a shell; Private Miller’s arm and right side were slit open by a bayonet and it wasn’t clear what internal injuries he had; Private Jones had lost an arm and was full of shrapnel; Private Brownley had lost an arm and an ear, and couldn’t remember how. Some had already had surgery; some were waiting for it. One or two had picked up infections on the battlefield and needed to be carefully nursed through pneumonia, typhoid or septicaemia before they could start on a course of surgery. There were those, too, in other wards, Moffat later explained to Poppy, who did not have flesh wounds but who were troubled with their nerves almost to the point of madness. By the end of the round, Poppy felt that she could have sat down and wept beside each bed at the senselessness of it all.

The group came to what had been the curtained bed and Poppy braced herself once again, but the drape was already half-open and she could see a big, fair, young man with a week’s stubble – a trench beard – lying back on the pillows with the covers up around his neck. Poppy, employing the trick that she and Matthews had invented, squinted a little, then slowly brought his face into focus. It appeared to be perfectly regular, thank goodness, with two ears, a normal nose and smiling brown eyes.

‘Are you with us this morning, Private Mackay?’ Sister asked.

‘Aye, I believe I am,’ came the reply.

‘Private Mackay has lost both arms below the elbow,’ Nurse Gallagher said to Poppy. ‘He’ll have surgery to tidy things up, then he’ll probably go to Roehampton to be fitted with new arms.’

‘I wondered why he was behind screens,’ Poppy said tentatively.

‘It was because he only arrived a couple of days back and came in straight from the line. He was utterly exhausted and desperately needed to sleep,’ Sister Kay said, overhearing them. She spoke directly to the patient. ‘We heard that you got stuck in no-man’s-land, Private Mackay.’

‘Aye,’ said the soldier. Speaking very slowly, he continued, ‘I picked up a German grenade and tried to lob it back, but it went off. My pals tried to reach me, but it was awful bad out there.’ There was a long pause and then he added, ‘I had to lie in the mud and play dead until our stretcher-bearers could come and get me.’

‘And now
we’ve
got you and you’re safe,’ said Sister Kay.

‘Aye, that you have,’ he said, giving a sigh. ‘When I blacked out, the guns on both sides had been thundering day and night. And when I woke here, between fresh white sheets, with everything so clean and quiet, I thought I must have died and gone to heaven.’ He gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘Especially since I’m as naked as a newborn.’

Sister nodded. ‘You were caked in mud and blood so we had to cut you out of your uniform and wrap you in a blanket.’

‘I’ve not even got my trews!’ said the soldier.

Sister smiled and turned to Poppy. ‘Pearson, see what you can find in the pyjama box for Private Mackay, will you?’

That night Poppy and Matthews walked down together to catch the bus home.

‘I’m fearfully jealous of the amount of hands-on nursing you’ve done,’ Matthews said, after listening to Poppy’s tales of the boys of Hut 59. ‘I’ve not been trusted to do so much as take a man’s temperature!’

‘I’m sure you’ll be doing more stuff soon,’ Poppy said. She thought of the miles of bloodied bandages that she’d taken on a trolley to the laundry and cringed. ‘And when you are doing it, you’ll wish you weren’t.’

‘But mine are all “up” patients. How am I supposed to cultivate a bedside manner when none of them are actually in bed?’

‘Your turn will come.’

Matthews looked at Poppy enviously. ‘But you’ve helped those boys. You’ve done something you can be proud of. All I’ve done is wash up!’

Back at the hostel, Poppy had a bowl of soup, washed and went to her cubicle. At this time, just before she drifted off to sleep, it was usual for images of Freddie de Vere to flit through her mind. On this occasion, however, the faces of the injured boys of Hut 59 would not be driven out by Freddie de Vere. Round and round they went in her head: snippets of the things they’d said; the singing while their wounds had been dressed; the strangely modulated voice of the band-leader on the gramophone record; the fatigued face of young Thomas; Private Mackay, straight from the front, talking about his trews . . . Vivid slices of her day refused to leave her. It was at once the most shocking, the most dreadful and the most rewarding day of her life.

After lying awake for a couple of hours, she got out her notepad and fountain pen.

YWCA Hostel,

Southampton

6th September 1915

Dear Miss Luttrell,

I passed my examinations and I have started working now. I’m sure you’ve heard of Netley Hut Hospital – it has been set up for war casualties in the fields behind the Royal Victoria. I am working in a hut which is also a ward: a very handsome and well-stocked place with electricity and running water, also a small kitchen, bathroom and storeroom. The majority of the food comes over to us from one of the main kitchens and it is usually me who serves it.